Google Books, Internet Archive and other online sources of Public Domain literature have opened up a new world for me in 19th and early 20th century reading. In 1905 Bertha Von Suttner was the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize for her novel, Die Waffen nieder! (Lay Down Your Arms!), and for her work in organizing an international peace movement. This popular novel, written in an autobiographic style, introduced thousands of readers of her time to the arguments of pacifism by telling the story of a woman, raised in a military family, who becomes opposed to war, and sets out to document rational arguments against the patriotic reasons nations put forward to justify their wars. Leo Tolstoy compared the effect Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin had on the abolition of slavery to the effect Lay Down Your Arms was having towards the abolition of war. Her hope to find a rational way to end armed conflict is so inspiring to me.